Kelly McKinnie (University of Montana) Friday 18 March, 12-1pm, Place: Carslaw 375 Essential dimension of generic symbols The essential dimension of an algebraic object is loosely defined as the minimal number of independent parameters needed to define the object over a base field. For example the essential dimension of the tensor product of n generic symbol algebras (x_i,y_i) over C is 2n as expected. In this talk I will discuss generic symbols in both characteristics 0 and p and their essential dimensions.